44) The End- Season 5, Episode 20. Season five wraps up their short run with a supposed lead in to the movie. Really, there are only two things connecting this episode to the movie directly, the X-Files are shut down and the guy who kills off the botched assassin in this episode is the same guy who keeps killing people in the movie.
The main story is about a creepy kid named Gibson who can read people's minds because he has developed an abnormal part of his brain and has some alien DNA...kind of. An assassin tries to kill Gibson at a chess exhibition but kills a Soviet grandmaster instead, almost sparking an international incident. Jeffrey Spender (Cancer Man's son) and Diana somebody (Mulder's old partner/lover) begin taking more active roles.
As a character, Gibson is horrible. We are supposed to sympathize with the little shit but he just basically screams out for a wedgie. He keeps just dropping people's private thoughts out for public consumption and is not really likable. As a storytelling device, he is pure gold. He cuts through all the poses and half-truths people around him speak and just outs their true motives and fears. While it would be awesome to get him around Cancer Man or one of the Conspirators, he basically just talks smack about how Mulder is torn between Dana and Diana.
Getting all the pieces in place for the movie wasn't that hard (mainly because the pieces barely move on this show) but I was very disappointed that characters like Spender, Diana and Gibson were introduced only to be left out of the film. Speaking of which...
SPECIAL BONUS- X-Files: Fight the Future- This was the major motion picture filmed between seasons 4 and 5 and released between 5 and 6. A lot of it is devoted to getting non-fans up on who's who (which I guess is why important new characters like Spender and Gibson AND KRYCEK don't appear). While there are some deft ways of showing that Scully needs to see to believe and Mulder takes wild leaps, most of the rest of the movie is big special effect scenes and action set pieces.
The movie opens with Mulder and Scully in Dallas looking for a bomb in the building next door to the building the threat was called in on (after some caveman/alien fights and black oil shenanigans). Mulder finds the bomb by dumb luck and then John Locke refuses to disarm it and the building gets blown up. Corpses are found inside and our heroes are somehow blamed for this. Martin Landau pops up as a conspiracy theorist who points our heroes towards looking closer at the bombing.
Cancer Man says they need to deliver an infected human to the aliens to let them know that we know what they are trying to pull. Scully is chosen as that person (Mulder gets shot in the head while she is taken!). Then, after a Lone Gunman cameo, Mulder gets told basically every damn thing about the conspiracy by the Well-manicured man. The bees and corn will serve as delivery systems for the black oil, which is how the aliens will colonize. The abductions are being done by the military in order to steal genetic material to make alien/human hybrids (who are resistant to the black oil) who can resist the colonization. This explains why the conspirators both arrange the abductions and help the alien bounty hunter kill those produced from them. The conspirators are playing both sides against the middle. Well-Manicured Man dies and his last act is to tell Mulder where to find Scully.
Mulder ends up in the arctic and sneaks on board an alien craft that seems to house hundreds of humans who are infected with the black oil. Mulder injects the Russian vaccine (stolen by Krycek in season 5) into Scully and it corrupts the whole ship, sending the aliens fleeing. By the end of the movie, the X-Files are reopened again, Scully is cured and all is right with the world.
I can see why this was not a global smash or anything. You had to be really invested in the mythology to get into all the revelations in this movie. There is even a bit of a showdown but no real resolution. It works a little like Serenity, I can't see it through the eyes of a non-fan because I was very much a fan when it came out. I just don't see what a non-fan would get from this muddled narrative. Lots of things happen, but I'm not sure why you should care. Definitely an indispensable piece of the puzzle, though. Mulder strikes a blow against the alien oppressors!
45) The Beginning- Season 6, Episode 1- So begins my favorite season. Relocated from Vancouver to L.A. to film, the energy is immediately different. They take a lot of narrative chances this season and try to keep any new fans hooked from the movie invested in the show. I don't know if they succeeded at all but it was a treat for hardcore fans like myself to see the characters placed in a variety of cool, new situations.
The show ends with Gibson trapped in a reactor with a killer alien that sheds a layer of skin and ends up looking like the little wussy grays. The writers get a little more mileage out of Gibson but I was glad to see him go.
Tomorrow, proceeding with Season 6, Drive and Triangle.
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